Spring is raw for us so far. Where we were for the last one, what isn’t, etc.
But still it compels us to smile, the warm spring air. We look for hawks as we drive, living these lives that we could have never seen.
Is there a way to un-hope for something? If so, I’m living it. So now I don’t do hope. I just do givens, realities, nows.
I’m living a series of nows that must remain distinct from everything that came before and anything that might happen next.
Other terrible things probably await down the path of my life. But I’m sure stupendous beauty and ridiculous fun is somewhere out there, too.
I’m just worried about the timing.
Too many flying bags of flaming shit directly in the face can really beat a man down. So it’s time for better things to start getting better and being more awesome.
Directly.
I want to get things straightened out and cleaned up, but then I just sit back down here at the computer or out on the couch or often in my car and I just go through the World. Go. Do. Forward. Get. Things. Done. Whatever is the next thing in front of me, that’s what I do.
This weekend while away in the woods, all I could do was read. I read in the yard and on the porch and almost walking up the hiking trail, too, but mostly I read. I had to have it all in my head instead of just there in my hands. I can’t do anything with it if it’s still in the book.
Then to bed. Bed is dangerous. Horizontal hopes send my stomach gurgling and my mind whirling. Upright and walking I wander through the day observing the anxious actions of my physical self. There I go getting shit done. How the eff do I do it, I wonder, my mind wild and tight.
We walked in the woods this weekend and I put my book away long enough to look around and hit the trail and get some breath and sweat. There were long, warm views from atop the mountain and crisp early-spring shadows still laced with snow. I didn’t have much to add to the group’s banter and conversation because I was brooding through the woods.
It was nothing specific beyond Silas and everything that is my life now. No particular worry or newly bad situation rumbled around my brain. A pervasive sadness just filled me even as I relished the thrum of turkey vultures taking off, fleeing my mad dash down the trail around knobby roots and small, firm trees. Old leaves covered every inch of the forest floor, giving each step the potential for slip. But I got winded before I tripped and fell. Lucky me.
For a few moments I was alone in the woods in the rustling quiet of nature. I listened and looked and stood slightly sweating in the cool arboreal shade waiting and wondering for what was next. Not just the next moment, but the next everything. For a moment I thought about what our lives might look like if we had another child, but I couldn’t focus on that thought for long.
I was worried and hopeful throughout Lu’s pregnancy but those thoughts and fears seem vastly inadequate to the magnitude of what happened. So I don’t bother with them anymore. Our lives will be whatever they are whenever that happens, and there was not much I could about it out there on the mountain, in the woods, briefly alone in the chilly spring air.
My muscles were atrophied from lassitude and grief but they kept me moving through the trees until I found the perfect spot to stop and wait.
The breeze across the sweat of my back sent me shivering.
I listened to my soul missing my son by hearing the subtle sounds of the life around me.
My wife and brothers and family and nephew snapped and crackled into my range, their laughter and conversation a beacon for my worn and tattered spirit. I waited for them on a rock above the trail, hiding in the glare of the sun.
Silas is hidden in the glare of my pain and grief. I need to have him close, but missing him burns my mind to a crisp.
Once they found me I walked with Lu’s hand in mine and we didn’t have to say a thing because we both knew what the other was thinking. I hope Silas knows too, somehow.
Back home I picked up my book and read some more. I had to have it all in my head because now, not knowing is worse than anything.
17 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 20, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Sally
I don’t even know where to start with this Chris. Just wow. Your words are the most powerful I read in this community. If you wrote a book, I know I would not be able to put it down. I hope you can both keep dodging those flying bags of flaming shit. I wish there was more I could do to keep you both out of harm’s way. Keep holding Lu’s hand tight.
April 20, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Inanna
Write a book. Please.
And this:
“But I’m sure stupendous beauty and ridiculous fun is somewhere out there, too.”
Yes. Yes, I hope so.
April 20, 2009 at 10:42 pm
ilostaworld
Spring is raw here, too. I hope your better things get better and better soon.
April 21, 2009 at 1:32 am
janistan
You never fail to stun me with your words. The raw beauty of it all.
They say men and women grieve differently, yet sometimes I feel you write how I feel, or felt.
Have you ever read “Swallowed by a snake”? I think that’s a good book.
April 21, 2009 at 6:14 am
Angie
Your book’s first line should be:
Bed is dangerous.
So much of this post resonates with me. I will be thinking about this alot today, “I was worried and hopeful throughout Lu’s pregnancy but those thoughts and fears seem vastly inadequate to the magnitude of what happened.” Yes.
Your writing is always so true to me. Thank you.
April 21, 2009 at 9:34 am
sweetsalty kate
So beautiful Chris. My god how I’d like to have a few beers with you and Lani.
April 21, 2009 at 11:07 am
Nuwie
this is another brilliant post, as everyone has said.
“I listened to my soul missing my son by hearing the subtle sounds of the life around me.” i like this imagery too…within you without you. it’s all one.
and the crux of it:
“Other terrible things probably await down the path of my life. But I’m sure stupendous beauty and ridiculous fun is somewhere out there, too.”
best thing to remember for ANY one going through this crazy world!
and it is good to read that you are searching for connections to/with silas.
only you now can direct how this tragedy is going to fit into your life…
and putting one foot in front of the other and “getting shit done” is a smart and brave road to walk while waiting for that change to manifest…
i worry about you bones, but i do know you can’t resist the fun and beauty in life…the force is strong in this one.
stupendous beauty and ridiculous fun (SBARF!) are just up the road…. 🙂
April 21, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Kristina
SBARF!!! I look forward to you experiencing this.
I had a weird, weird sense of deja vu as I was reading your post…..the part where you were reading while hiking. I swear I’ve dreamed that before. At first the image amuses me but then I can seriously see you doing this! “Bones, stop reading and look out for that branch!”
I look forward to getting out in nature w/you guys soon. Keep on keepin on….you’re both doing a tremendous job so far. Love you. ((HUGS))
April 23, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Heather
Thinking about you guys…love you lots and lots. OX
April 24, 2009 at 7:44 am
Kandy
It’s funny – I cut and pasted one of your lines so I could tell you how much I liked it, and I see someone else liked this line too:
“I listened to my soul missing my son by hearing the subtle sounds of the life around me.”
I want to have another child and am hoping (no, resolving) to get pregnant this summer. It’s hard to face so many things again, timing it, waiting the 12 weeks to hope I don’t miscarry, then the amnio, then hoping it works out this time around. It will be worth it but I know there are trials ahead.
April 24, 2009 at 10:14 am
luna
this is so beautiful. I hope you may continue to find some solace in nature, if only to connect with your soul and spirit, bringing you ever closer to your beautiful son silas for the moment.
April 24, 2009 at 10:20 am
Baby Steps
New here from Stirrup Queens.
This is a beautiful post!
April 24, 2009 at 10:59 am
Deathstar
I can’t imagine what it’s like to feel what you are feeling, but your grief just shot through to the core of me…visceral…Silas is part of you forever….
April 25, 2009 at 9:48 am
CM
I told a literary agent I know about your site and gave him the link. Don’t know if anything will come of it, but your talent is enormous.
April 25, 2009 at 11:03 am
Cibele
He does, he does know how loved and missed he is. My heart aches for you. I agree with others, you should wirte a book
April 26, 2009 at 7:13 am
suekyung
Chris, thank you for your beautiful words. I’m 3-months new to this world, fearful of speaking out and admitting it until now. My husband and I have been reading your blog though for a while and it’s one of the few that have really helped us. THANK YOU. – Connie
April 26, 2009 at 7:48 pm
sheila
your words are always so beautiful, chris. and they reflect your beautiful soul — I hope it helps you heal to know that your insightful words are helping others. Also, the idea of being only in the moment, of life being a “series of nows” sounds really right to me. I understand that you don’t do hope, but I am hoping for you, directing lots of hope your way, in fact — that life gives you many moments of “SBARF” and that your sweet Silas sends many hawks your way.